Sharon Hurley Hall

Earlier this year, Twitter turned 10. The now ubiquitous social network was launched in March 2006 and now has 313 million monthly active users, with 79% of those located outside the US. It is estimated that 500 million people use the site every month and 82% of its users access the site via mobile devices. Twit ...

Just how effective is online marketing at converting people from free to paid users of a particular tool? And is marketing the only thing that matters? I’m the first to admit I’m a hard sell when it comes to paying for tools, even the ones I love. That’s probably why it took almost five years for me to start ...

A lot of conversion optimization advice targets onsite conversions: ensuring that every aspect of your website is working to lead visitors to take action. But if you’re only focusing on what happens on your website, you’re missing a trick, because there’s lots going on offsite that has an effect on conversions. Research from Shareaholic shows ...

I’m a recent convert to Google Tag Manager (GTM). Launched in 2012, GTM helps marketers and conversion optimizers with a painful issue: implementing lots of different types of code on a site in order to track the metrics you need. Before GTM, putting tracking code on your site was a messy, risky business. Whoever ...

If you’re starting a conversion rate optimization (CRO) project, there’s a good chance you’ll be doing it on a WordPress powered website. As a WPEngine infographic shows, WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system, with 59.3% of the market and is used by some of the world’s biggest sites and brands. That’s why it’s t ...

If you’re looking for a great lead magnet that will wow your visitors, consider creating a case study. Why? Case studies work. Stories that Sell describes how one company used a booklet containing five case studies aimed at different buyer personas to gain a 40% conversion rate. And that’s from a printed book ...

Know your audience. It’s one of the key rules of getting better conversions. These days, knowing your audience isn’t simply about overall web traffic analytics; it means understanding your mobile and social audience too. Here’s why. How Big is the Mobile and Social Audience? In the US alone, according to Pew Research Center: Two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone 15% of Ame ...

Content marketing is an excellent tool for building authority, gaining influence, enhancing visibility, getting attention and, eventually, winning sales. But creating the right content is only half the battle. If you don’t promote your content so that people have the chance to see it then there’s no point in creating content at all.

Social media isn’t going anywhere. A whopping 65% of Americans use social media sites, according to Pew Research Center, and usage spans all age groups. Globally, at the start of 2015, there were more than 2 billion active social media accounts, and 1.6 billion mobile social accounts. So it’s a key part of any company’s marketing and conversion optimization strategy.

One of the fun things to do at this time of year is to look back at your predictions and see how you did. I’m happy to report, that this past year, we did OK. At the start of 2015 we said that user intent was going to be a major SEO focus in 2015, and we were right. So let’s take a look at what we should be looking forward to in 2016. 1.

‘Tis the season to do roundups and Crazy Egg isn’t immune from the trend. Here are the most popular posts on the blog this year, collated by cross-referencing stats from Google Analytics and Ahrefs Content Explorer. Conversion optimization, design tips, pricing, SEO – this collection of posts has it all. 1.

WordPress rules the web. The latest stats show that: 25% of the top 10 million sites by Alexa rank use WordPress every 74 seconds a new site within that group starts using WordPress 48% of all content management systems tracked by BuiltWith use WordPress (W3Techs puts the figure at 58.7%) That means if you’re talking about conversion rate optimization (CRO) for a website, the ...

Heatmaps are everywhere these days. You see them on the weather, on real estate sites – basically anywhere there’s data to display. And while we may think of heatmaps as a 21st century thing, it turns out they have been around since at least the 19th century. What is a Heatmap? Originally called a cluster heatmap, this tool visualizes a data matrix, as American Statistician e ...

Social media matters for leads, sales and conversions. The link may not always be obvious, but it’s there. The latest statistics from Pew Research Center show that 74% of online adults use social media, and in the 18-29 age group, this number rises to 90%. Social media is also hugely important in ecommerce, as a Shopify study shows, with orders from Facebook increasing 129% in 2013.

We’re visual creatures – that’s one of the reasons that infographics are so appealing. For many of us, it’s also about the stats. There’s something appealing about good research clearly illustrated. That’s the reason for this roundup of conversion rate optimization (CRO) tips from infographics, drawn from the length and breadth of the interwebs. Check them out! 1.

Want to get better results from your web pages? Then you have to get the copy right. Whether you’re writing landing page copy or tweaking button text, sending the right message will increase conversions. That’s why a good copywriter is a great investment. One way to improve as a copywriter is to learn from the best. Luckily, there’s plenty of expert writing advice around to help you do that.

I recently had my 100th post published on the Crazy Egg blog. (In case you’re interested, here’s my first, published in 2012.) For me, that’s quite a milestone, as it’s the most posts I’ve written on someone else’s blog. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. In celebration, I’m recapping some of the most successful posts I’ve published on the blog (based on comments and general b ...

Understanding analytics is at the heart of successful conversion optimization, because you need to measure what’s happening so that you know what to change or update. One shortcut to using analytics for conversion optimization is to learn from the experts. That’s the reason for this roundup of great advice from the best people writing on analytics, some of whom were featured ...

Shock! Horror! That’s what Stephen King’s name calls to mind. But it’s not all he writes. In my opinion, Stephen King has written one of the best books around about writing. It’s about the development of his writing career and writing tips and it’s called On Writing. And I reckon, it’s not just good for learning about writing in general, but about conversion-centered copywriting.